Winlink with Mobilinkd TNC3 and Baofeng BF-F8HP - NOT WORKED OUT

 Winlink Global Radio Email is "is a network of amateur radio and authorized government-licensed stations that provides worldwide radio email using radio pathways where the internet is not present." There are a lot of resources available on it's official website https://winlink.org/.

The goal of the exercise here is to use the devices available in hands to try out this Global Radio Email system and figure out a way to make it work (by 'work', it means that I can send and receive emails successfully through packet radio).

 

Devices Involved

  • Baofeng BF-F8HP
  • Mobilinkd TNC3 (with cable to connect the Mobilinkd TNC to BF-F8HP)
  • Windows laptop (~2years old)

Configurations

Windows Laptop

Install the Winlink Express (RMS Express) software from the download page of https://winlink.org. One trick here is to avoid installing into the "Program Files" folder like other applications. Accept the default installation location or somewhere you have full read/write access will be good. 

BF-F8HP

I am located in the United States where the APRS main frequency is 149.630MHz (simplex). The most important configurations are listed below:
  • SQL(squelch): 1 , Mobilinkd suggested to turn this fully off, however, Baofeng HT won't transmit in that mode.
  • VOX: 1
  • Offset: 000.000Mhz

Antenna

I tried a couple of antennas: the stock antenna came with BF-F8HP, the stock antenna (retractable, stretches up to 12inch), 48inch tactical antenna from Amazon, a mobile antenna with magnetic base also from Amazon. Out of the four, the 48inch tactical one has been giving me the best result where I can send and receive APRS packets with highest success rate from my home.

I am not an expert in evaluating antennas nor do I have any equipment to do so. My assessment is purely based on how my packets can easily show up on aprs.fi and how many nearby stations I can receive APRS packets.

Mobilinkd TNC3

Mobilinkd TNC3 is configured using the Mobilinkd Config App where you can follow the instructions/process on their user manual to set the values for all the configs. Below is the list of values I used for my BF-F8HP where I can send/receive APRS packets
  • Modem Settings: 1200 baud AFSK
  • Receive (RX/Input) Volume: I tend to check it each time before I actually use APRSdroid to send/receive data. The idea is that the Input Volume Level should be at the right most red bars. If it's not there, turn up the volume knob on the HT and/or increase the Input Gain Level. Leave the Input Twist Level at 6dB as is.
  • Transmit (TX/Output) Volume - the "Transmit" button needs to be clicked on to allow change the values
    • Output Volume:
    • Output Twist:
  • KISS parameters
    • TX Delay: 52 as Baofeng HTs needs to it ensure the sending action can be done without data damage (a lot of YT videos talked about this)
    • Persistence: 128

Winlink Express / RMS Express Configurations

To a rookie like myself, there are two main sets of configurations within the Winlink Express / RMS Express application: account and packet session. There have been a lot of videos if one simply search "mobilinkd winlink" so I won't repeat those here. One of the references is listed here: Reference on Winlink configuratio: https://www.qsl.net/w4eat/w4eat/Making_a_packet_connection_to_a_.htm

Final Outcome

After days of experiments with my Baofeng HT and even with a new Nagoya whip antenna, I have had no luck to get "Packet radio" work by following all the instructions I can find. Finally, I came to this post on Mobilinkd's forum: https://groups.io/g/mobilinkd/topic/tnc3_with_winlink_and_a/80510616?p=,,,20,0,0,0::recentpostdate%2Fsticky,,,20,2,20,80510616 and following gave the explanation why it does not work according to Rob Riggs WX9O from Mobilinkd:
There is an issue with using a Baofeng for Winlink -- or really any packet modes -- but especially connected modes.  The turn-around time for most Winlink nodes are rather tight in order to improve data throughput.  The Baofeng has a really slow turn-around time and will often miss the replies.  Most mobile rigs have turnaround times measured in milliseconds.  Most modern Japanese HTs -- 10s of milliseconds.  Baofengs are in the hundreds of milliseconds, typically 250-400ms.  The TX turnaround time of many Winlink nodes is about 180ms.
So my journey to make my Baofeng to work with Winlink officially comes to an end, not very satisfying, but awarding :) as I learned something and I have got some new excuse to get a new handheld radio. So my next action plan is to get a better handheld radio which can have a faster TX turnaround time at ~10s of milliseconds and resume my experiment with Winlink.


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